Trevor Hart on Irenaeus...

Reading today was based around revision for my module on soteriology and looking primarily today at Irenaeus. I read an article by Barth on Irenaeus idea of Salvation and doctrine of Recapitulation. It's logic went like this:

1 - Irenaeus has been view by Liberal Protestant scholars as affirming a simply 'Physical' view of redemption. He talks of aphtharsia and athanasia and seems to construct a model of salvation in terms of these metaphysical categories rather than in any moral categories i.e. sin, guilt, judgement, need of reconciliation, etc.
Take for example Adolf von Harnack who sees Irenaeus as pretty much flavouring his theology with quasi-Gnostic syncretism. Ultimately, to refute Gnosticism he dresses up the Christian Gospel in the guise of Gnosticism to win them over. Thus, for Harnack, the moral categories of sin, guilt, etc. fall out and we are left with Physical redemption.

2 - However, this cannot be the case because we have Irenaeus mixing language of aphtharsia and athansia with language of realtion i.e. there is some account of moral categories at work in Irenaeus theology. So what is going on? What is the problem?

3 - People like Harnack and Loofs are merely trying to squeeze Irenaeus into a procrustean bed of Greek metaphysics so that he is seen to mirror an ontological dualism. Resultingly, they have to discount any language of moral categories as vestiges of Irenaeus "moralism" or "eclecticism". (In thinking more on this after writing this post I think I've decided why it is that Harnack sees the metaphysical displacing the moral - for Harnack, the Physical Redemption is 'bare fact' - I mean by this that the redemptive act occurs in the womb of Mary in the union of the two natures - human and divine. If this is the case, then there is no need to talk about a moral aspect to salvation. Ultimately, Hart posits that Irenaeus ontology posits that the union between God and Man in Christ is a process which spans the whole of his earthly ministry and therefore he terms the union in more existential terms)

4 - The problem with this is that ontological dualism has no place for "existence" as Hart calls it but only essense (i.e. ontology). In other words, the relational language of koinonia between God and Man falls out of this ontology and is useless. Hart posits that rather than following this Greek metaphysical ordering, we should read Irenaeus language of relation and ontology together i.e. existence is in someway constitutive [sic] of ones ontology viz. our relations in some way make us what we are. Thus, a change in relation will result in a change of being and therefore, Irenaeus can think of the two categories as being closely linked.

All well and good but it seems to me that the anachronism which Hart seems so keen to pull up Harnack and co. on is repeated by him to a greater extent in his methodology. He uses terms which seem to me very reminiscent of an almost Barthian existentialist approach, something even more alien (so alien it didn't exist!) than the Gnostic neoplatonism that he accuses Harnack and co. of being bound by... I'm not saying I don't agree with his idea. Just that it seems as though he's in danger of going the opposite direction...